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It Doesn't Matter If You're "Good" at Skiing

Originally posted on Powder | By Izzy Lidsky | Last updated Mar 11, 2025 4:04 PM ET

"The best resort skiing I've done in 20 years," was the claim my step-dad laid after ripping his way around Mt. Bachelor, Oregon this past Friday.

It was a bold claim, even for the most epic of powder days, but particularly given the context of the conditions and his extensive ski experience.

As a kid, many of my weekends were spent putzing down Cramer and Village Way at Winter Park behind my parents on their tele skis, my older brothers off in the terrain park with their friends. The older I got, those days turned into pilgrimages to ski moguls over at Mary Jane, and running off to meet up with my own friends.

As I grew older and moved away from home, ski days with my family grew less and less frequent. My brothers and I are rarely in the same place all together, let alone at a ski mountain, and my mom stopped downhill skiing in favor of cross country.

When I moved to Oregon last year, I didn't think it would be a place my step-dad would want to ski, but after I skied down the perfect rollers on Cliffhanger at Mt. Bachelor one day, I thought 'My step-dad would love this mountain.'

So, this past weekend, he made the pilgrimage from southwest Colorado out to Central Oregon for a weekend of volcano skiing.

Our first day on the mountain was a clear day and just warm enough to remind us spring was well on its way. Higher up on the mountain, snow from a storm earlier that week was still soft and light, unaffected by the warmer temperatures of the lower mountain. We spent the day skiing trees, moguls, and searching for the remaining good snow until we tired our legs out.

As we skied tighter sections of trees or steep moguls through the weekend, I found myself following his lines and looking to him for approval on my skiing.

The next day, we ventured up Summit once again to ski Pinnacles, one of the steepest runs at Mt. Bachelor. The wind was strong and threatened to knock me off my feet. Worried that the chalky goodness we'd found the day before would be gone, I ventured closer to one of the rock fins that jutted from the mountain, hoping it would have sheltered some of the snow from the wind.

My step-dad stayed further left and skied the last bits of chalk. As he watched from the bottom of the run, I realized I'd made a grave mistake and found the least edge-able wind board, and I was right above a large outcropping of lava rocks that I hadn't seen while traversing.

My step-dad watched me shuffle backwards like a little kid scared at the top of a run, trying to find better snow, before side stepping down a foot or so. Eventually, I skied down, embarrassed to have gotten so nervous on a line I'd skied so well the day before.

I realized, as we clinked poles and I sheepishly made excuses for getting so scared, even as the kid of a ski instructor, it didn't matter how well I skied something, I'd spend my life trying to impress him. At almost 70, my step-dad still made textbook tele turns with as much grace and power as I remembered him having when I was a kid.

Despite my less-than-ideal line on Pinnacle, my step-dad still told me I'd skied it well and it was clear, as it has been many times before, that it wasn't my skiing ability or the conditions that made it such a good day for him. It was being able to share the love of skiing with someone he loves.

It wasn't the deepest or most epic day, but the experience as a whole will live in my mind as one of the best days in my own 20-odd years of skiing.

Skiing can be a love language of its own.